


Muscle memory

by lemonadesoda



Series: And I don't think you hate this as much as you wish you did [1]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Dadcher, Gen, Human!Snatcher, Hurt/Comfort, Oh the Humanity AU (A Hat in Time), Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, oth!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27377896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonadesoda/pseuds/lemonadesoda
Summary: There are things the body remembers.
Relationships: Bow Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time), Hat Kid & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Series: And I don't think you hate this as much as you wish you did [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999939
Comments: 32
Kudos: 192





	1. Cortisol

**Author's Note:**

> ...I'm back. Didn't expect to start this series (yes, series) but then Mak kept dropping content for this AU, and perhaps you are sensing a pattern that when I get Emo About Snatcher, I start writing things. I cannot control this.
> 
> Anyways, the stories I'm writing for this are meant to be sort of filling in the blanks between the comics. Meaning that I will be referencing a bunch of prior knowledge, so if you aren't familiar with the events of the AU, certain elements may be confusing. This is very Marvel Cinematic Universe of me and I'm sorry. Check out Oh The Humanity AU on doodledrawsthings tumblr if you're interested. I will try to cite my references as specifically as possible.
> 
> In this story, there's a reference to the Mirror Incident which has a fic "Shattered" on the archive by KinbariTeaHeathen.  
> Additional note: I try to avoid overlap between other stories in this AU but some similarities might exist. Okay, that's all, hope you enjoy.

> _ I’m very sorry that you have to have a body. One that will hurt you and be the subject of so much of your fear. It will betray you. Be used against you. Then it will fail on you my dear. _
> 
> -AJJ, ‘Body Terror Song’

Once the cacophony of physical sensation stops screaming in his brain long enough for him to regain a semblance of normal thoughts, the first thing Snatcher notices upon reacquiring a human form is the chill in the air. Ghosts aren’t supposed to get cold. He’s supposed to  _ be _ the shiver down the spine, not the victim of it. Still, it isn’t the way the breeze bites the surface of his skin that does him in but the way it burrows deeper and makes him see flashes of glowing red, feel the slick of icy stone, seize his upper arms expecting the searing burn of frozen metal. Now he’s breathing too fast, hands clamped over his ears but failing to drown out the sound of bloodrush and the alarmed cries of the two alien children hovering at his side. There is only his mind shouting  _ Out! Need to get out! _

Somewhere, deep within, the part of him that is still the ghost pounds a fist on the walls of his skull.  _ She’s not here, dimwit. Stop acting like you’re dying. _

Somewhere, from even deeper, another part of him whispers back,  _ Not yet, but she can get you now. She can get you again. _

At some point, he must get his voice to work, or otherwise the brats pulled some common sense together between the two of them, because there is a flash of light and the chill wind abruptly ceases. He lifts his eyes and sees the view has changed from his murky lab to the entire planet spinning outside a massive glass window pane, bright enough that it makes him squint. His heartbeat (he has one now) still drums in his head, but as he pulls his hands from his ears, the steady whirs and hums of the spaceship’s machinery fade into existence, washing over his nerves. Snatcher glares out the viewport, letting one hand flop beside his lap and clutching his heart with the other, concentrating on the sensation of his labored breathing.

“What. Just. Happened?” he gasps. Even though the air here is still, he trembles. It had been bad enough realizing that he had somehow taken on his human form again without getting sidelined by an onslaught of panic and raw emotion. Belatedly, the memories of minutes ago bubble back up. Right...he had been in the middle of a screaming match with Hat Kid about the situation before the cold gust rolled through, and his body decided it had other plans.

As his eyes focus on the window, he realizes he can see his reflection. The two kids shuffle up from behind and watch him watch himself. Even as a spirit, he never cared much to see his own face, and the sentiment doubles for his human form. He fixates on the whites of his eyes, which stand out slightly more than the rest of his shadowed image, then flinches and blinks. Too much, damn it. His gaze darts down to examine his shaking hand instead. He can’t stand yet. He knows his legs will give out, but he needs to get away from the window. He cannot keep glancing at himself, even out of the corner of his eye.

“Snatcher?” Bow Kid says in a tiny voice.

“Fix it,” he hisses, still staring down at his hand. “Fix it,  _ now _ .” He struggles to keep his voice low and dangerous enough to conceal the desperation that lurks beneath. If he focuses on being angry, he can just keep himself from begging, but he  _ needs _ to change back.

“I told you already, we can’t,” Hat Kid snaps. “ _ You _ broke it so bad. It’s gonna take forever!”

Bow Kid makes a shushing sound behind him.

“Well, it is!” Hat Kid whispers back. 

“What good are you if you can’t?” he grinds out. She clamps her mouth shut, staring at him in shock. “All your fussing over getting your precious Time Pieces back, but now you’re useless!”

Her eyes go wide, and next to her, Bow Kid exhales sharply. “I’m useless? This is  _ your  _ pecking fault! If we have a hard time figuring out how to fix it, then what’re you gonna do about it? You don’t even know anything about Time Pieces! If you’re going to be a jerk, then just go back to your stupid tree and yell about it where I can’t hear you!” She stomps away, followed by the swish of automatic doors as she exits the room. Bow Kid gives him a reproachful look before hurrying after her friend.

Snatcher clenches the hand on his chest into a fist. She’s right. It’s the height of hypocrisy for him to call her useless, and he knows it. And if he’s made her mad enough just now, she’s well within her ability to make good on her threat and beam him back down to the forest and leave him there to flounder, nevermind fixing anything. She’s the last person he should be antagonizing right now, but it’s either the irrational rage or the much more potent despair, and Snatcher will cling to the nearest lifeline he can grab.

He lifts his other, still-trembling hand to drag down his face, almost recoiling at the feel of his nose and cheekbones before remembering that, right now, they belong to him. This is not the casual possession of a human vessel, where sensation is an amusing novelty for him to discard whenever it loses convenience. This body insists, with tremendous violence, that it belongs to him, and it  _ remembers _ . His stomach (he has one of those now too) clenches, fills the back of his mouth with a sour taste at the realization that despite everything he’s going through right now, this body feels  _ right. _ His consciousness slid in like a foot into a well-loved shoe. Even after three centuries, he knows every corner of it.

Squeezing his eyes shut comforts him a little, blocking out at least part of the sensory experience. The very thought of going back down there, where the frozen air whips through the forest from the manor, starts the shivers and the too-fast breathing all over again. He can’t go back to Subcon right now. Not in this state. Already, he just can’t get warm enough. His fingers snarl in the fabric of his sleeves as he claws at his arms, remembering cold, remembering metal, remembering  _ alone _ . 

“Stop,” he groans, pressing his face into the floor.  _ She isn’t here, she isn’t here, she isn’t here, _ he chants to himself like a protective spell. Despite his protests, he continues to recoil from the grasp of his memories. This body insists it belongs to him, and yet it disobeys. (And perhaps that’s the most compelling evidence that it’s his.)

Snatcher rolls over and pulls his knees to his chest with a damp sigh, letting the sounds of the ship carry him off. If he wants to stay here, he’s going to have to apologize.

* * *

The forest stretches out into the shrouded dark. Snatcher floats over the swamp, grimacing at its frozen surface. Since when had  _ her _ influence been able to reach this far? And why weren’t the trees burning? Had she grown stronger somehow? He holds a hand out to reignite them, but no magic comes. He shakes his hand out, staring at it and tries again. Nothing. Something grabs onto him and he jolts, looks down to see the swamp hands, still coated in jagged shards of ice snaking out of the water to drag him below. Snatcher tries to fly higher, but he’s sinking. How? He looks down again and his body seizes up when he sees human legs, human arms, human everything, and icy hands strangling him in their grip, pulling farther. He’s going to drown. That realization sets in, with the now-familiar panic right on its heels. He thrashes, trying to fling the hands off, and several pillows go flying through the air.

Wait.

His lagging brain catches up to physical reality. Snatcher scrabbles at his legs and arms, brushing away the sensation of clutching hands as he regains consciousness. He sits up and immediately topples back down, unable to catch his balance because he is, at the moment, partially submerged in an ocean of pillows. His head twitches back and forth as he surveys his surroundings. The kids’ bedroom. How did he get here? And when? Snatcher lies there, waiting for his breathing to slow again, because it’s starting to make his head spin. Even once the dizziness passes, he remains still. Damn. He should have guessed this form would bring back nightmares too, because he’s just that lucky. At the very least, someone has given him a thick blanket and the pillows retain warmth nicely. He sinks a little deeper, pulling the blanket farther up and tries to shake off the lingering edges of the dream.

The doors alert him to another presence. Snatcher doesn’t bother to acknowledge them. Based on the sound of the soft humming, it’s Bow Kid, and she doesn’t seem to realize he’s awake, or else is ignoring him. Fine either way. He’s not exactly in a chatting mood.

After puttering about at the base of the pillow mound, Bow Kid climbs up and adjusts the blanket when she finally notices him watching her.

“Oh. You’re awake.”

“Terrific observation skills, kid.” He coughs after speaking, his dry throat stumbling over the words.

She purses her lips but glosses over the jab. “How are you, um, doing?”

“I'm piloting an inhospitable meat suit against my will. How do you think?”

“Okay. Um, that sounds like bad?” She drums her fingers together. “Do you want like hot cocoa or something? That makes me feel better. You were really shivering earlier.”

“No. Go away,” he says through his teeth and immediately regrets it because actually, yes, a hot beverage would probably be pretty comforting, but he's not ready to backpedal yet. The damn kids already got to see his incredibly pathetic breakdown, and he already knows he’s completely at their mercy. The last thing he needs is to be babysat by babies. He drapes an arm over his eyes to avoid looking at her.

She sighs. “Okay, fine.” The pillows wobble as she climbs back down to the floor. “Hattie is still pretty mad that you yelled at her. She might kick you out of our room.” Or the ship, she doesn’t say, which is maybe a good sign. Or maybe she’s just being diplomatic.

Just then, the door opens again and another set of footsteps patter into the room, along with a metallic jangling, like she’s carrying a bunch of machine parts. The jangling stops as it gets close, and the ensuing silence is solid enough to knock on. Snatcher can feel Hat Kid glaring at him even through his shielding arm, which he keeps firmly in place. Now would probably be the time to say he’s sorry, but he’s still reeling from everything that’s happened and reluctant to let go of that lifeline. After the sizeable pause, Hat Kid continues her trek across the room and tosses the metal parts she was carrying somewhere off to the side. She begins rummaging around through their storage.

“I want to sleep. Get out,” she says, affirming Bow’s prediction.

Well, he had been warned. Snatcher slowly draws the arm off his face and immediately flinches at the flat stare Hat Kid is giving him. He’s seen her annoyed before or betrayed even, when he first tried to fight them over the last Time Piece. Her expression now is...cold, for lack of a better word. In response, his chest tightens with a feeling he can’t quite place. Even if he had the will to apologize to her now, it would have deflated at the sight.

“Are you serious, you jerk? I said get o-”

“I can’t get up,” he mutters all in one breath.

Her expression flickers, the harshness falling away ever so briefly, and she shoots a glance at Bow. “What?”

Snatcher leans forward to sit himself up, only to wedge himself deeper into the pillows. He goes limp again, even that small effort wearing him down. He gestures at himself to cap off the demonstration.

The two kids chorus at once. “Ohh.”

Bow Kid is the one who reaches over to grab his hand and haul him out of the plushy mire. It’s a testament to the mood of the room that neither of them giggles at his embarrassing predicament. Solemnly, Snatcher picks up the blanket, hoping he can at least hang onto that, and wraps himself in it before staggering toward the door. He hazards a glance back. Bow Kid watches him, not following but frowning with concern. Hat Kid has already turned away. The invisible hand clamping around his chest tightens its grip as he leaves.

* * *

Snatcher has no idea what time it is. Not that that sort of thing used to matter to him as a spirit, but these are the things the body remembers--that there was a rhythm to the day and that like the kids, days are supposed to end in sleep. His body remembers the need for sleep, yet every time it forces him into unconsciousness, it terrorizes him back up in a harrowing matter of minutes with some new vision.

“Make up your damn mind,” he tells himself, staring bleary-eyed out the viewport. He focuses on the light of the planet because every time his mind wanders too deep into the shadowed corners, he thinks he can hear the dripping of water in a far-off cellar. Worse than that, in the dark, that’s when he’s the most aware he’s alone. These are the things his body remembers: when he used to reach out a hand under the blankets in the middle of the night, there used to be someone else’s waiting for him. Snatcher holds his hand out in front of him, gaze absent, and his fingers grace the empty air.

A surge of emotion wells up, clenching his throat, and for a moment, he’s terrified it won’t let him breathe. He drops his head into his hands, pulling on locks of hair until it stings. It’s his only line of defense against the isolation pressing around him.

Snatcher feels insane, sitting there delirious in the middle of the night with sobs rattling through him. Emotions are supposed to be in the mind, aren’t they? And that part of him feels the same, but it seems as though his physical form has a mind of its own, and it’s playing three hundred years of catch-up. What if he does go insane? He’s on the right track for it, with his body doing whatever the hell it wants, triggered by who knows what, dragging him along for the ride like it’s the poltergeist and he’s the hapless vessel. One of the sobs transforms into a ragged, ironic laugh. Maybe it’s best that the kid kicked him out of the room. He couldn’t bear either of them seeing him like this.

It’s been so long; he thought the ugly years were behind him. Things were good being a ghost. (Were they?) He was untouchable, powerful, and starting to think that maybe everything had been for the best after all. Sure, he had died, but maybe it was just shedding his old pathetic form and good riddance. Thanks for the memories, Vanessa, but now he’s better than ever. Except now, it’s all come crashing down. Again. How fragile fate can be.

Snatcher is light-headed again by the time he finishes crying, and his whole body aches from the continuous tension. His eyes  _ hurt, _ but he’s still afraid of what he’ll see if he dares to close them. Outside a whole new continent has rotated into view. He must have been crying for a couple hours. Impossible to tell. His body is clamoring for sleep, and there will be hell to pay if he doesn’t get it soon, but Snatcher lingers in his stupor, watching the planet tick the minutes of the night away.

As he predicts, the whole experience leaves him dead-eyed and slow to react the following morning. At one point in the middle of the night, he manages to find a washroom to clean his face off, and the sight of his reflection in full clarity makes his legs give out. After struggling at the sink, standing at awkward angles to avoid catching even a hint of himself, he manages to get himself at least feeling cleaner and hopes his actual appearance matches well enough to keep his sorry state concealed.

It must work, because by the time the kids enter the flight deck, they at least don’t seem overly concerned and set about their usual business. Bow Kid stops by with a bowl of food, some kind of porridge mix with fruit in it. His stomach is still doing backflips, which doesn’t make the meal look particularly appetizing.

“Cooking Cat says you should eat something simple because you’re not used to food,” Bow tells him. She peers at him. “You don’t look so good.”

Snatcher grabs the bowl. He doesn’t know who the hell Cooking Cat is, but the idea that they know him and have potentially seen him crying on the floor all night only darkens his mood further. “Didn’t I explain this to you already? Nothing about this situation is good. If you’re just going to beat a dead horse, don’t bother.”

“No, I mean like really terrible. Are you sick?”

Yes, he thinks. His affliction is called being alive. Snatcher glances over Bow Kid’s shoulder to see Hat Kid marching off to some other part of the ship with a plate of food in one hand. She has the concentrated gaze of someone intentionally not looking at something. Bow Kid follows his stare and some of the reproach from yesterday returns to her face.

“You didn’t have to be so mean to her. It really is going to be hard to fix. We’re really trying.” She picks up her own plate and leaves the same way as Hat.

It takes several seconds of her words simmering in his insomnia-fogged brain for it to occur to him that despite Hat Kid’s threats of abandoning him, she and Bow are actually still working on the broken Time Piece. He’s given them absolutely no incentive to help him, and if he were in their position, Snatcher would have been ejected into space by now. The tightness in his chest returns, and he knows this human form is trying to send him a message. Snatcher pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders and nibbles at his breakfast.

(The message is guilt, but he’s not ready to think about that yet.)

This curt equilibrium continues for three more days--he briefly meets the Cooking Cat in this interim and once he realizes she’s a  _ friendly _ sort, he actively tries to avoid her. She does make him calming tea every day, carefully not mentioning that he looks more like shit with each passing sleepless night. Because no, the throat-clenching anxiety of being left alone in the dark has not relented, and Snatcher is not sure how long he can keep what little cool he has left.

On the third night, he breaks.

Snatcher paces across the long window of the flight deck. With each passing day, his mind frays more and more at the thought that he might be stuck like this, plagued by nightmares and memory and continuous sensation. It builds like a pressure inside his skull--so much so that he only realizes he’s heading to the kids’ room by the time he’s already halfway there. He’s fully on autopilot now, and he is too exhausted to fight it.

When the doors part for him, Snatcher hears the startled shuffling of blankets as the lights flash on. He must truly look terrible, because he watches Hat Kid’s indignation and Bow Kid’s confusion dissolve into alarm and concern. Hat is quicker on the draw to leap out of the bed and cross the room to him, and Snatcher is just  _ too tired _ to untangle what that means. He just collapses onto his knees when she reaches him.

Hat Kid slides into a kneel in front of him. “Snatcher? What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.” The words come out slurred, he can barely keep his eyes open. “I can’t-this is- _ I can’t. _ ”

“Hattie, should I get-” Bow Kid starts.

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.”

Bow Kid hurries out to get whatever it is they’ve telepathically agreed upon. Snatcher just huddles there. He’s well beyond pride at this point.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, breathlessly. “You’re not useless, you’re not. I know, you’re trying, I just-” He exhales, the dizziness resurging.

“It’s okay,” she says softly.

He stares down at her hands resting on her lap, his hair falling into his face and blocking the rest of her from view. “So tired.”

“Yeah.” Though not unkind, her tone indicates it was obvious.

When he doesn’t respond, she sidles up to his side and puts one of his arms over her shoulder and hauls him over to the stack of pillows. Snatcher collapses onto them like a ragdoll. He’s only vaguely aware of her motions as she arranges some bedding next to him and pushes a pillow more comfortably under his head. Bow Kid returns with that cat’s herbal tea, but the two of them seem to deem him unfit to hold hot liquid at the moment because they wordlessly put it off to the side. Instead, the two of them tuck themselves into the blankets Hat Kid laid out beside him.

Through half-lidded eyes, Snatcher watches them. It was stupid to try and hold out for so long because this is already so much more comfortable than curling up on the floor with just a blanket and his damaged ego. He woke them in the middle of the night, so despite their efforts, it doesn’t take them long to fall back asleep, though he witnesses some valiant attempts to stay awake. It’s actually a little heartwarming. (It’s immensely heartwarming.)

Snatcher doesn’t know what force drew him here in his moment of desperation, but it must have known what he needed before he did. With the sound of their steady breathing beside him, somehow, the darkness doesn’t bear down on him the same way, and he finally finds the courage to sleep.

When the nightmares come, because they still do, seeing them there still asleep grounds him. If two children can sleep soundly here, there must not be danger after all. Just a dream.

Hours later, Snatcher sits up, disoriented. Most of the room is still dark. On the far side, in a corner of blue lamplight, Bow sits in a beanbag chair reading a book. Snatcher looks down at his side and notices Hat Kid is still crashed out, the blanket partially kicked off and her mouth wide open. There is no sense of time here, but the gentle quiet is unmistakably one of early morning, when the household eases into the day at its own pace. Across the room, Bow Kid gives him a small smile when she sees him awake, and he blearily returns it. He gives Hat Kid one last glance before following her example and sinking back down and going back to sleep.


	2. Oxytocin

The body does not, in fact, act in service of the conscious, Snatcher reflects. It’s a common misconception--certainly in his first life he believed he was largely the one in control--but having experienced existence with and without one, he knows better now. The body provides him with ambiguous signals to communicate what it wants, and his one job is to interpret them accurately and complain about it vocally so that he can acquire what it demands. Life as a human becomes much more tolerable once he accepts the true nature of this arrangement.

He accepts, for example, that sometimes he just moves without thinking. 

Hat Kid is telling him a story about how she terrified the Mafia by covering herself in mud.

“That crazy Mafia guy was so dumb. We were aliens the whole time, but he only got scared when I was all slimy and like ‘Arrrghgh!’” She holds her arms out in front of her, miming a zombie and rolls her eyes back far enough to show the whites. Bow doubles over giggling at the reenactment.

Snatcher snickers. “To be fair, I wouldn’t want your gross alien slime getting on me either!”

“Gross? Like this?” And she lunges toward him and wraps her arms around his middle.

“Ugh yes, like that!” Snatcher wheezes and shoves her away before she can get too tight of a grip. She tumbles back onto her butt, and with another laugh, he reaches out and ruffles her hair, pushing her hat askew.

She lets out an indignant squawk as she readjusts her hat, but she doesn’t act like he’s done anything weird, so Snatcher plays it cool. But after the fact, when Hat Kid is distracted chattering to Bow, he frowns at his hand and wonders where that gesture came from.

The kids in the village, he muses. He used to mess with them like that. Must just be one of those holdovers from the past. After all, Snatcher knows by now that his current form has its heels firmly dug in the Once-Was.

And then again.

Bow is eating cereal and drawing next to him with Hat Kid sitting across the small table. Snatcher stares at the incomprehensible physics book that they’ve translated onto a tablet for him. He’s studied physics before. Whatever this is is nonsense, even after it’s been converted to Earth language. For the dozenth time, he glances up and once again notices that Bow Kid’s headband is crooked so that the bow slants awkwardly across her hairline. Alright, that’s it. With a grumble in his throat, Snatcher reaches over and casually tugs it straight.

Bow Kid freezes mid-chew and her eyes slide over to look at him. He silently gives her a defensive shrug and then pointedly resumes staring at the tablet, though he’s not really absorbing much of the words he’s reading. He can feel her eyes on him for several minutes before she finally goes back to her drawing.

And again.

He collapses, breathless on top of the pillow stack, bits of the fluff floating in the air after the pillow fight that has just concluded. Well, he’s partially breathless because there are literally two children piled on his chest, grinning over their victory. 

“Okay,” he pants. “You win.” And because the weight on his ribcage is starting to become painful, “Now get off.” He adds a little extra wheeze to the last bit to emphasize the point.

They hurry to oblige, and it is annoying that part of the reason is that his hand is currently wrapped in clumsy gauze and bandages, and they feel sorry for him. Most days, he’s got himself under control, but he still has trouble with his reflection. At least there won’t be a mirror for a bit until they have the damn thing fixed.

Still, he has to admit, the pillow fight had been fun. It’s nice to indulge in a little violence that this fragile, twiggy form can handle without pain. The kids are still giggling, draped over each other off to his left, and he smirks at them. It comes naturally to encircle his arm over their heads like a sheltering wing, though he’s careful not to actually make contact. This is just the most comfortable way to lie, since otherwise he has to keep his arm pinned against his side.

This is perhaps his mistake, though, since Hat Kid seems to take the gesture as an invitation to actually nestle herself against his side, and Bow Kid tucks herself against Hat, so now he practically does have an arm wrapped around their shoulders, and this is not what he signed up for, but aw crap, they’re falling asleep now.

Snatcher purses his lips, staring at the ceiling. Well, he could launch them off, but...he sees the bandages on his left hand from over Bow’s shoulder. They really shouldn’t have had to see him like that or been the ones to help patch him up. He can’t help but keep coming back to the fact that they’re just a couple of kids, no matter how independent and tough. It’s only fair to let them sleep.

This is all just some ancient muscle memory, isn’t it? No need to read into it too deeply.

So the fact that he’s pacing around the ship again because the kids have gone off on another Time Piece hunt in a place called the Metro is just another one of those quirks of his old human form. The prince had once been a stressed out guy and by now he knows being alone is a trigger point, so no wonder he’s fighting off an anxiety attack right now. Right? (Hah. Fool.)

“I’m sure they did much more dangerous work for  _ you _ than this,” Moonjumper says, perched on the railing of the balcony overlooking the flight deck. As much as it rankles him, Snatcher has left them in charge of Subcon, lest any intruders get it into their heads that they can start running amok. They’ve taken it upon themself to “check in” on him from time to time, and he doesn’t want to admit that right now he’s actually glad to have the company. The kids have been gone for two days, which was normal and fine when  _ he _ was normal and fine, but now that it’s been established that the human version of him hates being left to his own devices, Snatcher will take literally anything to occupy himself.

“It’s not like I care about that,” he snaps back.

“Mhm,” says Moonjumper.

“It’s just boring as hell being stuck here.”

“Mhmm,” says Moonjumper.

Snatcher narrows his eyes at them. “Shut up.”

“I’m agreeing with you.”

“You’re implying things.”

Their face is all innocence. “Like what?”

“Just shut up.”

They hold up their hands in surrender and resume watching him pace.

He’s not worried. Not really. It’s just this damn human body, idiot prince. The same one that’s been giving him weird dreams as of late. The ones about Vanessa he understands, but these days the kids have been featuring in them more and more. It’s logical, he tells himself. The constant exposure to their company means they obviously feature more in his subconscious.

He doesn’t think about the dream from last night, where Hat Kid went swinging through the high canopy of Subcon, oblivious to his warning shouts that the branches she was walking on weren’t stable. He doesn’t think about watching helplessly when they snapped under her feet and she plummeted hundreds of feet with no umbrella to catch her. He doesn’t think about Bow crying over her best friend’s still form or the way she turned glowing red eyes filled with hate and betrayal so uncharacteristic of her waking-life self.

No, he doesn’t think about that.   
  


“Things are well in Subcon,” Moonjumper says gently, interrupting his reverie, and Snatcher realizes he has been standing in place with a thousand-yard stare for several seconds.

He folds his arms. “Yeah? They better be.”

“The Subconites keep asking after you. I think they miss you.”

Snatcher scoffs. “They’ll be in for a rude shock if they see me like this.” He grimaces. “They might think I’m an intruder and push me into a pitfall.”

“All the more reason to pay a visit sooner rather than later...As soon as you’re able.”

Snatcher grumbles under his breath. The sympathy is annoying, but Moonjumper is also perfectly willing to call his bluff if he tries to act like he’s not nervous about going back to the forest in this form. They have far too much leverage over him now, and that makes him want to punch something again. Too bad it hurts so much.

He doesn’t have much time to stew over it, though, because a flash of light blinds him, and the two kids stumble from the teleport pad. In a few long strides, Snatcher crosses the room to them and immediately his brow knits together.

“Kid?”

“Oh dear.” Moonjumper lurches from the balcony and glides down to meet them.

Bow Kid looks a bit dirty but otherwise fine, but she’s clinging onto Hat Kid’s arm because the latter is cringing and rubbing at a scorch mark on her cheek. Hat Kid limps forward, her coat torn in a few places along the sleeve and her palms are red with abrasions. She grits her teeth in what looks like an attempt at a smile and pats Bow’s hand, but her friend doesn’t let go of her.

Snatcher drops down to crouch in front of her and grabs her by the shoulders, ducking his head lower to get a better view of her face. “Kid, what the heck?”

“Ow, Snatcher, watch it!” she says.

“Sorry, kiddo.” He eases his grip on her shoulders and then reaches out and brushes the soot on her cheek with the back of his hand.

“What happened, little one?” Moonjumper asks as they rest a comforting hand on Bow Kid’s back.

“Stupid Empress caught us trying to lift the Time Pieces from her vault.” Hat Kid sticks her lip out.

“She had rockets,” Bow says, voice still a little shaky from their apparent ordeal.

“Snatcher, can you let go? I need to go change,” Hat Kid grumbles. She’s still heavily favoring her left leg, barely able to put weight on it. 

Snatcher purses his lips at the sight and wraps an arm around her, hoisting her up.

“Whoa, what the-?” Hat Kid flails for a moment before clinging onto him.

“You’re heavier than you look,” he says through his teeth, stepping back a few paces to rebalance himself. He’s aware both Bow Kid and Moonjumper are gaping at him right now. He ignores them and focuses on walking normally toward the bedroom.

“Well I didn’t ask you to carry me!” But she adjusts her position in his arms so she’s easier to hold.

“If I drop you and you can stick the landing, then go ahead and walk,” he grouses.

“It’s fine,” she mumbles, leaning into the crook of his neck. Snatcher inhales sharply. What is he doing, exactly? And why does it come so naturally? There’s no backing down now without raising even more prying questions though, so he doesn’t break his stride.

He deposits her on the large bed but hovers until Moonjumper and Bow Kid arrive shortly after. Hat Kid’s face and clothes are covered with black stains, and she looks like she needs first aid. Snatcher remembers watching streams of blood run down his hand and going into a stupor, letting the Cooking Cat and the kids handle the patching up. He turns and walks out of the bedroom.

“Hey, cat,” he says upon entering the ship’s kitchen where Cooking Cat spends nearly every waking moment of her visits. “Where were all the first aid supplies you used for, ah, for my hand.”

Cooking Cat frowns at him, pausing her stirring. Whatever it is she’s making smells spicy and delicious. “Did something happen again?” She scans him up and down, looking for the injury.

“No, er, not me. The hat brat.”

She briefly narrows her eyes at the nickname, but concern takes over. She adjusts some of the settings on the range before brushing off her apron and hurrying down the hall. The first aid kit is in the bathroom, which has been the setting of numerous great memories for Snatcher so he lingers at the threshold while Cooking Cat gathers the supplies and then pushes past him back out the door. Moonjumper runs into them right as they make it back to the flight deck. They give Cooking Cat a polite nod.

“Oh, I was wondering why you just walked out like that.” They sound a little surprised that he actually went and did something sort of responsible, which is insulting. When Snatcher is irresponsible and chaotic, there is  _ purpose _ and  _ intention _ to it, damn it all.

By the time the three of them return to the bedroom, Hat Kid has changed into a t-shirt and pajama pants and is leaning back against the pillows on the bed. With her boots off, the redness around her left ankle is now apparent. Snatcher groans internally. That will keep her off her feet for days, which means she will get cranky, and then he’ll get cranky, and then Bow Kid will get upset, and then Moonjumper will have to get involved. Nightmare.

“My goodness, honey, what happened?” Cooking Cat sets about cleaning the soot and disinfecting scrapes. She clicks her tongue at the scalding on Hat Kid’s palms as she rubs soothing lotion on them.

“It’s  _ fine _ ,” Hat Kid whines, wincing whenever Cooking Cat wipes a cut. “We had worse.”

“Kid, you can’t even use one of your legs,” Snatcher says. Now that he’s not on the receiving end of the treatment--and also not dissociating--he watches every aspect of the process. Cooking Cat is not always around. Busy lady...er, feline.

“Can too.” She kicks it out and holds it straight. “See?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Mr. Snatcher is right, sweetheart. You’re going to have to take it easy,” Cooking Cat says, pushing the kid’s leg back into a relaxed position.

“Mr. Snatcher is my father,” Snatcher says. Moonjumper snorts behind him.

“Ugh, there’s still more Time Pieces to get though!”

“I can find some on my own, Hattie,” Bow Kid says.

“ _ No, _ ” says literally everyone else in the room simultaneously.

Bow Kid leans back, holding up her hands. “Okay! Sorry!”

“It’s much safer when the two of you are together,” Moonjumper says gently.

Bow casts her gaze down, picking at her fingernails. “Yeah…I know.”

Hat Kid holds her hand. “It’s not your fault.”

Snatcher frowns at the exchange. Unfortunately, the two of them have a lot of their conversations in the unspoken, so it’s hard to infer what exactly happened, but he realizes it’s not just Hat Kid’s emotions that are going to afflict him over the upcoming days.

Cooking Cat patches up Hat Kid’s injuries and wraps her ankle and then heads back to the kitchen to make the kids a comforting meal. She brings Snatcher some too, some of that aromatic who-knows-what she was making when he first interrupted her, and he mumbles sounds that resemble something like “Thankyou.”

“If everything is alright here, I should check back in on Subcon,” Moonjumper tells him once they’ve all finished eating. “But I’ll be back once I’m done.”

“I got it, Moony, no need to hover,” Snatcher says.

Moonjumper gives him a skeptical look, which, again, insulting. Then they wave at the kids before disappearing in a burst of silver moonlight.

He got it, he says. He’s got what? Snatcher glances sidelong at the kids. Hat Kid has her leg propped up on a pillow, and Bow Kid leans over her shoulder, watching her play some kind of game on a holo-tablet. It sinks in that he’s essentially told Moonjumper he has committed to babysitting. In all honesty, Hat Kid is probably fine. She’s tough, and a few singes haven't stopped her in the past. Snatcher chews on his lip. He would know from experience. For some reason, he hesitates to leave them now though.

It’s this damn body, isn’t it, once again disobeying his commands? (It’s not.)

He tells himself yet again, there’s no point in him being here. It’s not like he cares. And he isn’t worried. (Hahaha. Fool.)

So he should know what his answer is supposed to be when Hat Kid looks up from her game and says, “I’m really okay now, Snatcher.”

“You could have died,” he snaps back. Nope. That’s not what he’s supposed to say.

She wrinkles her nose. “As if. I told you, we’ve seen worse. What’s with you today? You’re being so weird.”

Well, now what’s his defense for that? He is. “I’m supposed to be the one who puts an end to you,” he says finally.

“As if,” Hat Kid says again, already looking back at her game. “Whatever, you can keep sitting there if you want, but quit staring so much. You’re making me get hit.”

“I wasn’t staring!”

Hat Kid levels a flat expression at him before groaning in exasperation as the game makes an impact sound. “Agh, peck! Again! And you super were.”

“Wasn’t.” It’s a weak argument, so to emphasize his point, he stands up and fetches one of his books that Moonjumper delivered for him and sets up in his reading nook.

The words don’t really make it into his head. He just broods with a book in his hands. Snatcher doesn’t know what’s happening to him. He won’t say that any of this feels  _ normal, _ but it’s been three weeks since his transformation. He’s still impatient for the kids to fix the Time Piece and get his proper form back, and there has been more than one fight since the first night about how long it’s taking, but his desperation lacks the same edge it once had. They have routines, now. He knows their schedule. He knows  _ Cooking Cat’s _ schedule. There’s a place for him at the table. His clothes now occupy a portion of the closet. A subtle shift has taken place, and he’s finding himself drawn into their orbit.

The game has been looping its obnoxious Main Menu theme for a while now, so Snatcher peers over the top of the book. The two children are folded over each other, passed out, the holo-tablet leaning against Hat Kid’s leg. He puts down the book.

Snatcher picks up the tablet and powers it down, docking it at its charging station like they showed him how. Carefully, he unwraps the ice pack from Hat Kid’s leg which has become a soggy bag of cold water by now. She retracts her leg and then flinches but doesn’t actually wake up. Bow stirs in her sleep. He straightens the two of them out, grateful that they tend to be heavy sleepers, and pulls the blanket over them. Before he hits the switch for the lights, Snatcher stares blankly at their slumbering forms.

His jaw sets as a wave of emotion surges up, and he swats the lights off, wrenching his gaze away from the bed. Grinding his teeth, Snatcher fights against the quiver of his lip, presses his palm into his eyes as if he can push the tears back in.

These are the things this body remembers: somewhere, deep down, way back, he rehearsed motions like this in his head. There was a future, once upon a time, where these were things he was supposed to know. These were things he wanted to know.

Snatcher curls up in his spot in front of the window, struggling to keep his hitched breaths quiet. It’s just an ancient holdover. That future does not belong to him anymore.


End file.
